„If you add up the pulling of news organization phone records (The Associated Press), the tracking of individual reporters (Fox News), and the effort by the current administration to go after sources (seven instances and counting in which a government official has been criminally charged with leaking classified information to the news media), suggesting that there is a war on the press is less hyperbole than simple math.“ The Other Snowden Drama: Impugning the Messenger (New York Times 24.6.2013)

“ While we’re having this debate, discussion and all this media explosion, which of course supports transparency, which is a great thing in this country, but that same transparency has a double-edged sword, in that our adversaries, whether nation state adversaries or nefarious groups, benefit from that same transparency. So, as we speak, they are going to school and learning how we do this. And so, that’s why it potentially has—can render great damage to our intelligence capabilities.“

Guardian Autor GLENN GREENWALD:

“ The claim that the director is making is so ludicrous that I’m surprised he can get it out with a straight face. It really ought to insult the—it does insult the intelligence of every single person to whom he’s directing it. The idea that there are any terrorists in the world who pose any real threat who aren’t aware or who weren’t aware until our articles appeared last week that the United States government tries to monitor their communications and listen in on their telephone calls and read their emails, any terrorist who is unaware of the fact that the U.S. government was doing that is a terrorist who is incapable of even writing their own name, let alone detonating a bomb inside the United States. Exactly as Mr. Binney said, their only concern is—this has nothing to do with terrorism. They’re not trying to keep any of this from the terrorists; they’re trying to keep it from the American people. And that’s the point.“

Frage an Geheimdienstkoordinator Clapper im März 2013:

„Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?“

„(…) A new leader will be elected. They’ll flip the switch. Say that because of the crisis because of the dangers that we face in the world. Some new and unpredicted threat. We need more authority, we need more power and there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it. It will be turn-key tyranny.“

“ The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife’s phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards. (…) The NSA routinely lies in response to congressional inquiries about the scope of surveillance in America. I believe that when [senator Ron] Wyden and [senator Mark] Udall asked about the scale of this, they [the NSA] said it did not have the tools to provide an answer. We do have the tools and I have maps showing where people have been scrutinised most. We collect more digital communications from America than we do from the Russians.I know the media likes to personalise political debates, and I know the government will demonise me. (…) I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building. (…) I don’t want to live in a world where there’s no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity. (…) I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest. There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is. The only thing I fear is the harmful effects on my family, who I won’t be able to help any more. That’s what keeps me up at night.“

„Protect Whistleblowers:Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.“

„I don’t welcome leaks, because there’s a reason why these programs are classified.“

„Edward Snowden: saving us from the United Stasi of America.Snowden’s whistleblowing gives us a chance to roll back what is tantamount to an ‚executive coup‘ against the US constitution“ Daniel Ellsberg/Guardian 10.6.2013

“ Associated Press standards editor Tom Kent told staff Monday that „whether the actions exposed by Snowden and [WikiLeaks source Bradley] Manning constitute wrongdoing is hotly contested, so we should not call them whistle-blowers on our own at this point.A better term to use on our own is ‚leakers‘ “ Huffington Post 10.6.2013

In a new interview with Binney on Jun. 7, the former codebreaker — one of the best in NSA history — directly disputes Intelligence chief James Clapper, who told the Senate Intelligence Committee the NSA does not collect any type of data on millions of Americans:

“ They’re eating crow right now. Those are lies. Those are just outright lies. Obviously they are, with that court order. They’re scooping up the metadata of everything, and the PRISM program is a scoop up of actual content. Emails, video, photographs, all of that—that’s content. So they’re collecting all of it, and it’s a big vacuum. So you know, those are just outright lies.“ Business Insider 10.6.2013

“ Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said on CNN’s „AC 360“ Tuesday night that reporters should be prosecuted for publishing stories with leaked classified information. After King explained why he believes the recent NSA leaks pose a grave threat to national security, host Anderson Cooper asked him if he thinks the reporters who break stories off of leaked information should be punished in some way. „If they willingly knew that this was classified information, I think action should be taken, especially on something of this magnitude,“ King said.“ Huffington Post 12.6.2013

“ There’s evil people in the world. Drones aren’t evil, people are evil. We are a force of good and we are using those drones to carry out the policy of righteousness and goodness.” Salon 10.6.2012

“ Greenwald, not only did he disclose this information, he has said he has names of CIA agents and assets around the world and they’re threatening to disclose that. The last time that was done we saw the murder of a station chief in Greece. No right is absolute. And even the press has certain restrictions. I think it should be very targeted, very selective, and certainly a very rare exception, but in this case, when you have someone who has disclosed secrets like this and threatens to release more, then to me, yes, there has to be, there should be legal action taken against him. This is a very unusual case with life and death implications for Americans.“ Washington Post 12.6.2013

“ Last year in my Wired cover story on the enormous new NSA data center in Utah, Bill Binney, the man who largely designed the agency’s worldwide eavesdropping system, warned of the secret, nationwide surveillance. He told how the NSA had gained access to billions of billing records not only from AT&T but also from Verizon. “That multiplies the call rate by at least a factor of five,” he said. “So you’re over a billion and a half calls a day.” Among the top-secret documents Snowden released was a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order proving the truth to Binney’s claim and indicating that the operation was still going on. I also wrote about Adrienne J. Kinne, an NSA intercept operator who attempted to blow the whistle on the NSA’s illegal eavesdropping on Americans following the 9/11 attacks. “Basically all rules were thrown out the window,” she said, “and they would use any excuse to justify a waiver to spy on Americans.” Even journalists calling home from overseas were included. “A lot of time you could tell they were calling their families,” she says, “incredibly intimate, personal conversations.” She only told her story to me after attempting, and failing, to end the illegal activity with appeals all the way up the chain of command to Major General Keith Alexander, head of the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command at the time. Without documents to prove their claims, the agency simply dismissed them as falsehoods and much of the mainstream press simply accepted that. “We don’t hold data on U.S. citizens,” Alexander said in a talk at the American Enterprise Institute last summer, by which time he had been serving as the head of the NSA for six years. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made similar claims. At a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee last March, he was asked, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” To which Clapper responded, “No, sir.” The documents released by Snowden, pointing to the nationwide collection of telephone data records and not denied by government officials, prove the responses untrue. The deception by General Alexander is especially troubling. In my new cover story for Wired’s July issue, which will be published online Thursday, I show how he has become the most powerful intelligence chief in the nation’s history. Never before has anyone in America’s intelligence sphere come close to his degree of power, the number of people under his command, the expanse of his rule, the length of his reign, or the depth of his secrecy. A four-star Army general, his authority extends across three domains: He is director of the world’s largest intelligence service, the National Security Agency; chief of the Central Security Service; and commander of the U.S. Cyber Command. As such, he has his own secret military, presiding over the Navy’s 10th Fleet, the 24th Air Force, and the Second Army.“ Wired 12.6.2013

“ James Clapper must go: His attempts to mislead the nation — and absurd claims afterward — should get him fired and prosecuted“ Salon 12.6.2013

The Guardian has issued a statement in response to Rep. Peter King’s call for the prosecution of Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald:

„We are surprised and disappointed by comments from Rep. Peter King R(NY), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, saying „legal action should be taken“ against Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald for his reporting on NSA surveillance. This is especially troubling in light of comments from Eric Holder, US Attorney General who stated: „As long as I am attorney general, we will not prosecute any reporter for doing his or her job.“ Holder went on to say he was “troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable.“

“ FBI Director Robert Mueller defended the amassing of widespread phone records, before a House Committee, saying had it been in place before the Sept. 11 attacks, the attacks could have been “derailed” (…) Monitoring calls between a Yemen safe house and an organizer in San Diego, “could have derailed the plan, in any case, the opportunity was not there,” Mueller told the House Judicary Committee. “If we had this program that opportunity would have been there.” Politico 13.6.2013

„He described how Khalid al-Midhar, one of the 9-11 hijackers, had called a Yemeni safe house from a phone in San Diego shortly before the attack – a phone call that would have been intercepted and acted upon, claimed Mueller, had today’s surveillance system been in place.“ Guardian 13.6.2013

“ Clarke offers an incendiary theory that, if true, would rewrite the history of the 9/11 attacks, suggesting that the CIA intentionally withheld information from the White House and FBI in 2000 and 2001 that two Saudi-born terrorists were on U.S. soil—terrorists who went on to become suicide hijackers on 9/11.“ The Daily Beast 11.8.2011

NSA Prism is motivated in part by fears that environmentally-linked disasters could spur anti-government activism:

“ But why have Western security agencies developed such an unprecedented capacity to spy on their own domestic populations? Since the 2008 economic crash, security agencies have increasingly spied on political activists, especially environmental groups, on behalf of corporate interests. This activity is linked to the last decade of US defence planning, which has been increasingly concerned by the risk of civil unrest at home triggered by catastrophic events linked to climate change, energy shocks or economic crisis – or all three. Just last month, unilateral changes to US military laws formally granted the Pentagon extraordinary powers to intervene in a domestic „emergency“ or „civil disturbance“: „Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances.“ (…) Two years later, the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Army Modernisation Strategy described the arrival of a new „era of persistent conflict“ due to competition for „depleting natural resources and overseas markets“ fuelling „future resource wars over water, food and energy.“ The report predicted a resurgence of: „… anti-government and radical ideologies that potentially threaten government stability.“ In the same year, a report by the US Army’s Strategic Studies Institute warned that a series of domestic crises could provoke large-scale civil unrest. The path to „disruptive domestic shock“ could include traditional threats such as deployment of WMDs, alongside „catastrophic natural and human disasters“ or „pervasive public health emergencies“ coinciding with „unforeseen economic collapse.“ Such crises could lead to „loss of functioning political and legal order“ leading to „purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency…Also in 2010, the Pentagon ran war games to explore the implications of „large scale economic breakdown“ in the US impacting on food supplies and other essential services, as well as how to maintain „domestic order amid civil unrest.“ Speaking about the group’s conclusions at giant US defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton’s conference facility in Virginia, Lt Col. Mark Elfendahl – then chief of the Joint and Army Concepts Division – highlighted homeland operations as a way to legitimise the US military budget:“An increased focus on domestic activities might be a way of justifying whatever Army force structure the country can still afford.“ Two months earlier, Elfendahl explained in a DoD roundtable that future planning was needed: „Because technology is changing so rapidly, because there’s so much uncertainty in the world, both economically and politically, and because the threats are so adaptive and networked, because they live within the populations in many cases.“ The 2010 exercises were part of the US Army’s annual Unified Quest programme which more recently, based on expert input from across the Pentagon, has explored the prospect that „ecological disasters and a weak economy“ (as the „recovery won’t take root until 2020“) will fuel migration to urban areas, ramping up social tensions in the US homeland as well as within and between „resource-starved nations.“ NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was a computer systems administrator for Booz Allen Hamilton, where he directly handled the NSA’s IT systems, including the Prism surveillance system. According to Booz Allen’s 2011 Annual Report, the corporation has overseen Unified Quest „for more than a decade“ to help „military and civilian leaders envision the future.“ The latest war games, the report reveals, focused on „detailed, realistic scenarios with hypothetical ‚roads to crisis'“, including „homeland operations“ resulting from „a high-magnitude natural disaster“ among other scenarios, in the context of: „… converging global trends [which] may change the current security landscape and future operating environment… At the end of the two-day event, senior leaders were better prepared to understand new required capabilities and force design requirements to make homeland operations more effective.“ It is therefore not surprising that the increasing privatisation of intelligence has coincided with the proliferation of domestic surveillance operations against political activists, particularly those linked to environmental and social justice protest groups. Department of Homeland Security documents released in April prove a „systematic effort“ by the agency „to surveil and disrupt peaceful demonstrations“ linked to Occupy Wall Street, according to the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF). Similarly, FBI documents confirmed „a strategic partnership between the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the private sector“ designed to produce intelligence on behalf of „the corporate security community.“ A PCJF spokesperson remarked that the documents show „federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America.“ In particular, domestic surveillance has systematically targeted peaceful environment activists including anti-fracking activists across the US, such as the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, Rising Tide North America, the People’s Oil & Gas Collaborative, and Greenpeace. Similar trends are at play in the UK, where the case of undercover policeman Mark Kennedy revealed the extent of the state’s involvement in monitoring the environmental direct action movement.“ Gurardian/Nafez Ahmed 14.6.2013

„Well, I wanted to ask you about—in 2012, at the annual DEF CON convention, the hacker convention, NSA director, General Keith Alexander, was asked whether the NSA keeps a file on every U.S. citizen. This was his response.“

GEN. KEITH ALEXANDER:

„No, we don’t. Absolutely not. And anybody who would tell you that we’re keeping files or dossiers on the American people know that’s not true. And let me tell you why. First, under our agency, we have a responsibility. Our job is foreign intelligence. We get oversight by Congress, both intel committees and their congressional members and their staffs, so everything we do is auditable by them, by the FISA Court—so the judiciary branch of our government—and by the administration. And everything we do is accountable to them. And within the administration, it’s from the director of national intelligence, it’s from the Department of Justice, it’s from the Department of Defense. I feel like when I was a kid growing up—and some of you may feel like this, too. You know, you might get in a little trouble. You’re supervised a lot and maybe had to spend time in the hall. Well, that’s the way I feel today. We are overseen by everybody. And I will tell you that those who would want to weave the story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people is absolutely false.“

JAMES BAMFORD:

„Well, it’s funny. I was there, too. I also spoke at the DEF CON conference there. But the comments that General Alexander made, I thought, were amazingly out of place, because here it is, we just discovered he has all these dossiers that he’s listing, that he’s got all these records on American people and all these links into American Internet. What he’s talking about in terms of oversight also is—is just nonsense. He talks about the courts. Well, the court he’s talking about is a top-secret court that nobody is even allowed to know where it exists, where its address is, let alone getting any information from it. And in the last—or, the last time that they overhauled the legislation, they weakened the court a great deal.“

“ When the mammoth trial against the so-called Sauerland Group begins in Düsseldorf’s Higher Regional Court on Wednesday, it will also have to address Mevlüt K.’s Balkans connections. Investigators now believe he played a more key role in the cell than previously thought.Several German security officials claim that K. was not only working for jihad, but also as an informant for the Turkish secret service, which shared K.’s insider information with the CIA.“ SPON 21.4.2009

„If you were wondering how the NSA and FBI felt about the very friendly hearing the House Intelligence Committee invited them to today, a hot mic has your answer. „Tell your boss,“ NSA Director Keith Alexander told the FBI deputy director, „I owe him another friggin‘ beer.“ The Atlantic Wire 18.6.2013

„Germany ‚among countries offering intelligence‘ according to new claims by former US defence analyst Wayne Madsen, an NSA worker for 12 years, has revealed that six EU countries, in addition to the UK, colluded in data harvesting. At least six European Union countries in addition to Britain have been colluding with the US over the mass harvesting of personal communications data, according to a former contractor to America’s National Security Agency, who said the public should not be „kept in the dark“. Wayne Madsen, a former US navy lieutenant who first worked for the NSA in 1985 and over the next 12 years held several sensitive positions within the agency, names Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain and Italy as having secret deals with the US. Madsen said the countries had „formal second and third party status“ under signal intelligence (sigint) agreements that compels them to hand over data, including mobile phone and internet information to the NSA if requested. Under international intelligence agreements, confirmed by declassified documents, nations are categorised by the US according to their trust level. The US is first party while the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand enjoy second party relationships. Germany and France have third party relationships. In an interview published last night on the PrivacySurgeon.org blog, Madsen, who has been attacked for holding controversial views on espionage issues, said he had decided to speak out after becoming concerned about the „half story“ told by EU politicians regarding the extent of the NSA’s activities in Europe. He said that under the agreements, which were drawn up after the second world war, the „NSA gets the lion’s share“ of the sigint „take“. In return, the third parties to the NSA agreements received „highly sanitised intelligence“.Madsen said he was alarmed at the „sanctimonious outcry“ of political leaders who were „feigning shock“ about the spying operations while staying silent about their own arrangements with the US, and was particularly concerned that senior German politicians had accused the UK of spying when their country had a similar third-party deal with the NSA. Although the level of co-operation provided by other European countries to the NSA is not on the same scale as that provided by the UK, the allegations are potentially embarrassing. „I can’t understand how Angela Merkel can keep a straight face, demanding assurances from [Barack] Obama and the UK while Germany has entered into those exact relationships,“ Madsen said. The Liberal Democrat MEP Baroness Ludford, a senior member of the European parliament’s civil liberties, justice and home affairs committee, said Madsen’s allegations confirmed that the entire system for monitoring data interception was a mess, because the EU was unable to intervene in intelligence matters, which remained the exclusive concern of national governments.“The intelligence agencies are exploiting these contradictions and no one is really holding them to account,“ Ludford said. „It’s terribly undermining to liberal democracy.“ Madsen’s disclosures have prompted calls for European governments to come clean on their arrangements with the NSA. „There needs to be transparency as to whether or not it is legal for the US or any other security service to interrogate private material,“ said John Cooper QC, a leading international human rights lawyer. „The problem here is that none of these arrangements has been debated in any democratic arena. I agree with William Hague that sometimes things have to be done in secret, but you don’t break the law in secret.“ Madsen said all seven European countries and the US have access to the Tat 14 fibre-optic cable network running between Denmark and Germany, the Netherlands, France, the UK and the US, allowing them to intercept vast amounts of data, including phone calls, emails and records of users‘ access to websites. He said the public needed to be made aware of the full scale of the communication-sharing arrangements between European countries and the US, which predate the internet and became of strategic importance during the cold war. The covert relationship between the countries was first outlined in a 2001 report by the European parliament, but their explicit connection with the NSA was not publicised until Madsen decided to speak out. The European parliament’s report followed revelations that the NSA was conducting a global intelligence-gathering operation, known as Echelon, which appears to have established the framework for European member states to collaborate with the US. „A lot of this information isn’t secret, nor is it new,“ Madsen said. „It’s just that governments have chosen to keep the public in the dark about it. The days when they could get away with a conspiracy of silence are over.“ This month another former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, revealed to the Guardian previously undisclosed US programmes to monitor telephone and internet traffic. The NSA is alleged to have shared some of its data, gathered using a specialist tool called Prism, with Britain’s GCHQ.“ Guardian 30.6.2013